Are Your Harnessing The Power Mindset Change?
Notes on the margin of the book the Power of Mindset Change
This Article appeared in the 2023 edition of Rapport Magazine by ANLP.
Beginnings
Our new book The Power of Mindset Change is the culmination of a fascinating journey for both of us. Robert’s odyssey began in the mid 1970s when he first met NLP founders John Grinder and Richard Bandler and understood the profound significance of mindset and mental programming on our lives. Robert has been studying the power of mindset to transform our health, relationships, professional careers and collective potential ever since.
Through the years, Robert has done coaching, consulting and training related to mindset change for a wide variety of entrepreneurs and organizations (Apple Inc. was his first corporate client in 1980). In 1999, Robert created the process of Success Factor Modeling with his late brother John in order to identify the “differences that make the difference” for highly successful individuals, teams and organizations. These years of experience and research into what creates individual and collective excellence and success are a key part of development of the Success MindsetMap Inventory.
In 2013 in Budapest, Mickey attended a program that Robert was giving on coaching and “The Hero’s Journey.” During the program, Mickey was a coachee for Robert for a demonstration of an alignment process focused on what we have come to call “Meta Mindset.” During this process, Mickey, who already had a successful coaching and training business in Central and Eastern Europe, experienced a significant breakthrough with respect to his “big picture clarity” for the future, and connected with an greater vision and sense of purpose. He realized he had a calling to take his work to a more global level and with a special focus on being a bridge between cultures. As a result, he has since worked with many leadership teams of Fortune 500 hundred companies, training over 2000 leaders and executives.
When Robert launched a major phase of the Success Factor Modeling initiative, Mickey participated in an extensive modeling study of “Next Generation Entrepreneurs,” conducting numerous interviews. It was during this period, in late 2014, that the first seeds for the Success MindsetMap Inventory were planted.
What is Mindset?
According to neuroscience, mindsets can be thought of as “lenses or frames of mind that orient individuals to particular sets of associations and expectations” which, in turn, shape our thinking, feelings, and behavior. Mindsets can be likened to the inner software apps that we are using to address a particular circumstance or accomplish a particular goal. They are what ultimately determine our degree of success at whatever we are attempting to achieve. Therefore, our awareness related to being in the right mindset is crucial for success in whatever we do.
Mickey believed that it was important to have a way to actually visualize the key qualities of a person’s mindset. This idea intrigued both of us and we began to explore possible ways to do that. We initially envisioned creating a type of Internet game that would make a general categorization of the user’s mindset, like the Harry Potter Character Test[MOU2] . This is where the idea of using well-known entrepreneurs (such as Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Anita Roddick, etc.) as iconic examples of particular mindset qualities originated.
Levels of Mindset
As we developed the project further, we realized that there was actually the potential for a very powerful tool, and the current version of the inventory began to take shape. Our interviews and studies of successful entrepreneurs and business leaders reached into the hundreds, and more and more key patterns began to emerge. This led us to making the distinction between Meta, Macro and Micro mindsets.
· Meta Mindset is our big picture clarity about what we are doing. It encompasses our fundamental attitude toward our world, the work we do, and the way we see our roles and goals.
· Macro Mindset relates to the mental disciplines and practices that we have adopted to bring focus to our big picture and put our personal and professional visions into action.
· Micro Mindset produces and guides the specific actions necessary to build a sustainable path for our venture, project, or team.
In the book, we go into each of these areas of mindset in detail and illustrate them with case examples of notable entrepreneurs such as media mogul Oprah Winfrey, Covid vaccine developer Katalin Kariko and Apple founder Steve Jobs. Starting or building a project or venture is very much like the journeys taken by the early explorers. They needed to have a certain mindset and tools in order to arrive at their desired destinations. So we also chose to use a number of legendary explorers, navigators and leaders, to symbolize key aspects of the Meta Mindset as well as icons related to the resources necessary to successfully complete a major ocean voyage for key areas of Macro Mindset.
A GPS for the Mind
The Success MindsetMap Inventory integrates the various key qualities of Meta and Macro Mindset with the nine critical practices of Micro Mindset into a type of “GPS for the mind.” Given where you want to go – i.e., what crucial business outcome you want to achieve – it shows you where you are and what path you need take to most effectively reach your destination
Our first version of the Success MindsetMap Inventory was a smart phone app. We enlisted Antonio Meza, who illustrated the three volumes of the Success Factor Modeling book series, to help us create the images and icons to be used for the map. We soon realized, however, that a phone app alone would be too limiting and switched to developing the web-based app that we are using today that can be readily translated to other languages.
As we introduced the Success MindsetMap Inventory to our clients and colleagues, it became evident that it was an extremely useful and powerful resource that provided a type of feedback and support that was not available in any other form. The ability to identify and shift patterns of mindset in order to reach desired outcomes provided key breakthroughs for our users that no other methodology was able to achieve. We also began to realize that, in the hands of trained coaches, the inventory could be a powerful instrument of growth and transformation, when linked to the relevant professional development coaching tools and processes.
These realizations led to the creation of the 20-page Success MindsetMap Premium Report, which gives users and their coaches a detailed analysis of the different levels of the user’s mindset and access to 49 unique online coaching tools designed to support the enhancement of specific qualities of meta, macro or micro mindset. Our hands-on work with the Premium Report also provided the basis for the six-step COACH+ process for implementing the results of the Success MindsetMap Inventory. It has also led to the development the 28-page Success MindsetMap Team Inventory Report and our forthcoming Success MindetMaps Conscious Leadership Inventory.
As you can see, our journey is well under way and is continuing still. We both consider the developments associated with the Success MindsetMap Inventory to be part of a larger movement to bring greater awareness and transformation into the world of business. We hope readers will find it as fascinating, exciting and practically useful as we have and will consider joining us for more of this journey in the future.